The Blood Prince
by Servant of Fire
Summary: AU Continues from Legend of Drowning Girl. After Link makes the deal with King Enma , Ranma and Ryoga go on a quest to rewrite the Book of Fate, and bring Link back into the World. At the same time, Zelda's grief begins to turn the girl form into stone. Tendo puts Kasumi into "The Temple of the Star" to protect her from Farore while Ranma and Ryoga are gone.
1. Chapter 1 Fox's Wedding

**~The Blood Prince~**

**Continuing From "The Legend of Drowning Girl"**

**Chapter One: A Fox's Wedding~**

_The Song of Time is swirling in their dream, along with the many crystal faces of the Clocks, tick-tick-TICKing relentlessly away into Eternity._

_And he's falling._

_Dear God, Prince Link is falling through time, in between the Clocks._

_"NO!" _

_Zelda is screaming her head off, and the Sheik form is swimming like a maniac against the current of Time, reaching for him, trying to catch him._

_"Take my hand, Prophet!" Ranma snaps, angry that Link is doing this._

_"I can't..." his voice whispers back._

_"TALK ABOUT STUPID! LINK, YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!"_

_"But Ranma...it's ok..." Link laughs, as if Ranma is the one who's stupid. He looks up, and smiles, placidly._

_Totally, insanely ok with this._

_"I never really was alive..." Link says, and then..._

_A great pile of golden bills and white feathers rain down through Eternity._

* * *

"YEEEEEGAAAAAADSSS!"

Ranma wakes up in Zelda's form, slashing at the thin air with her katana.

"SAOTOME, WHAT?!" Ryoga shouts, sitting up from his bed roll.

"Come to me , Legions! Bleed thou, Sanzu, from my sword!" Zelda shouts, voice clear and high, out of the girl form.

"What the heck, Zelda?" Ranma thinks.

But he's too upset by the dream to calm his thoughts either.

Ryoga thinks quickly. He goes to their dying fire, and stirs up the tea kettle hanging over its embers. Yes!, the water is still hot enough, scalding actually.

He tosses the whole pot over Ranma's head.

"Euggghhh..."groans the young ninja.

"It worked , right?" Ryoga laughed, at his expression.

Ranma looked up at him, feeling like he'd been punched in the gut.

Sleeping out here in the elements, the cool morning dew, and the bitter rain had been falling on him, whilst he dreamt.

And so he was dreaming Zelda's dreams alot more now.

It was 3 months since Prince Link made that deal with King Enma to save them all from Farore's schemes.

3 months since Ryoga took the Book of Fate from Farore's hand.

3 months since Link had made Ranma the Master of his Blood.

Ranma was actually _Prince _Ranma now. The Blood Prince to be exact. Wielder of one of the two Golden Tears.

Which was weeping profusely down his cheek now, dripping gold on his chest.

"Blech! Why?!" Ranma cried, horrified, sprinkling melting gold everywhere, shaking his hands.

Ryoga studied him, thoughtfully.

"It's the girl...She's devastated by what happened to the Prince..."

"Yeah, and its killing me...Her dreams are pretty is why we have to change Fate, to bring him back from Unmaking."

"Do you think... we can do it?" asked Ryoga, haltingly.

This had been Ranma's plan all along.

Would it actually work?

"No point in trying to think if we can. We _will, _anyway! Now c'mon!" Ranma cried, leaping to his feet.

He felt Zelda roll over inside of him and sob.

"Hold on..." he muttered, getting very concerned for her...


	2. Chapter 2 Chusei No Kodomo

**Chapter 2: Chusei No Kodomo ( Child of Ages ) **

"We have been wandering around for months, and WE ARE GETTING NOWHERE!" Ryoga wailed to the heavens ,falling on his knees.

Ranma ( in boy form) strode past Ryoga with a huff.

" Save,it P-Chan, no one trusts your sense of direction anyway...No,...old ghoul specifically sent us here...Dunno why, but she said we would need the Secrets of Chusei if we were to complete our mission to unwriting Time. We 're going down the side of the Yangtze River, seeing as you don't know. This is where they keep the Festival of Falling Stars. This is where we'll find the Scroll of the Fox's Vows..."

"Wha?"

Ranma huffed. "IT'S WHAT GHOUL SAID!" he hollered, punching the sky, himself totally exhausted with this journey. There seemed to be no point in it now. Link was dead. Genma had disappeared, and so his treachery was not totally revealed. Farore was silent, ever since the appearance of King Enma she had been too afraid to cross swords with Prince Ranma of the Blood. As far as all appearances, Kasumi was safe, the Curse was sealed, and the War was over before it even began.

But Link was dead, and so Time was broken. Nothing would ever be right again until the balance of Time was restored.

Link's soul was what was hanging the balances of the Universe, and Ranma knew it.

"We'll need to find a place to stay tonight..."Ranma was saying, when he spotted him.

"WHA?!" he cried, and leaped as if he'd seen a cat, high in the air, leaving a dust cloud in the shape of his skin, as if he had snake pealed himself inadvertently.

" Ehh, Saotome...d'you see a cat?" Ryoga scoffed, shaking the dust off of himself.

"Ahmigawdwhatthewassamuchworse..." Ranma growled, hair standing on end.

" _He's dead..." _Ranma thought, trying to snap Zelda out of her bereaved silence, needing her ancient ,sagely advice.

Ranma felt Zelda stir in tear-spent weariness within his bones.

" _ZELDA, SNAP OUT OF IT! If Link is dead, then why am I seeing him?!"_

Zelda came awake inside of him then.

"Link!" Ranma said suddenly, Zelda speaking for him, but with his own voice.

"What?" Ryoga gasped, and sat up.

"Don't...don't bring HIM up again!" Ryoga growled, stormy cloud gathering over him, tears errupting in one Vesuvius-sweeping climax and drying just as quickly as they'd come.

"NO, I SEE HIM! CHUSEI NO KODOMO!"

Ranma had unintentionally used his life-energy attack to summon a spirit. Who would have thought it could have been done, and least of all the spirit of someone who was no longer extant, techniquely speaking?

But Zelda ,in her weary desperation, had spoken out of the very depths of Ranma's soul, and had spoken the life-attack that would summon the Phantom of the Hourglass, Chusei No Kodomo, the Child of Ages. Link's phantomly remnant himself.

Suddenly, an aura of golden light gathered about the two young warriors.

"Uh?" Ryoga gasped ,slowly getting to his feet.

There was a smoke in the direction of the tiny Chinese riverside village, called Village of the Falling Stars. There was a light, and the shrill sound of an ancient pipe flute, and the far off growl of a tiger.

And then, _he _ came to them, in the form of a child.

"Who are you?!" Ranma and Ryoga howled in unison.

Ranma posed in fighting stance.

"Never mind who! _What _ the heck are you?! "

The child-sized Link raised a brow in meek confusion.

"You summoned me, Sire?"

"Bwahahaha, what's up with the "Sire" , you leprechaun?!"

The boy cocked his head, and his white gold hair fell over an eye.

"You are the Blood Prince, yes ? The Master of Time?"

Ranma felt like he'd had a cannonball go through his chest.

He was going to have to own up to it sooner or later.

"Errr..."

"You have the Golden Tear. You , and your companion. You are the Blood Prince!" the Boy cried, with a pleasant smile.

"Link...no!" Zelda whimpered out of Ranma's mouth, and he started sobbing weird girly little sobs.

" _ACCK! WILL YOU CUT THAT OUT?!" _Ranma growled in his thoughts.

Ryoga took one look at Ranma ,and stepped away .

The spirit swallowed, and shook his head.

"Zelda..." whispered Chusei No Kodomo .

Ranma reverted forms in a wave of golden light.

Zelda bowed over the little boy and sobbed into his hair.

Ranma was far away, deep inside of Zelda wondering how this could be?

" _I thought you were dead?" _Ranma's thoughts asked Link.

" _I am..." _Link replied.

Ranma and Ryoga knew that they were in for a very surprising revelation.


	3. Chapter 3: Commission From On High

**Chapter 3: A Commission From On-High~**

"My appearing to you is actually a serious felony in the Underworld..." Child-Link said, with a lopsided ,sad little grin.

"But I have come at the behest of the Blood Prince, and so all the punishments in Hell, or in Farore's Wind Cavern, which is far worse...could not disuade me. It simply can't, I am my blood, and you are the master of my blood, and I willed it to be so the last Hour that I lived."

Ranma's jaws were hanging wide open, and he couldn't speak. He was currently standing in boy form, beside the form of Zelda, who was bowed over, and scary pale.

"How the heck,didya...don't get it? I didn't summon you!" Ranma gasped, confused.

"But..you did...Master. Your fears for my sister did..." Child Link said, and looked up sadly, Elf-ears drooping like willow fronds in his sadness.

"When Link the son of Ganon comitted _sepukku, _and bound his blood to Saotome Ranma's mastery...his spirit was broken into many shards." the Child held up an Hourglass. At the bottom of it lay one teeny- tiny grain of emerald, luminescent sand.

"Or more preciscely grains of sand...Each tiny grain of the sand of Prince Link's soul, is a fragment of Time itself. The only way to set Time right again, is to gather each of these grains of sand from out of the Four Winds of Farore...To give you the Hourglass, although it is against the Law, that is my mission. And my punishment..."

Behind Link came rising up, glowing omniously and laying on its back, a gigantic white whale, with many other colors emblazzoned on its side. Its eyes were mostly closed, and in its lips was a set of bagpipes, and they were playing a funeral theme.

"I am the spirit of the Child, and this is my Tatari-mokke, spirit that soothes the souls of dead children, and leads them either to Heaven, or to Hell. This Tatari-mokke is called the Wind Fish, and he is as much a slave to Farore as I was...So then, he will not perform the usual duty of the Tatari-mokke to me. He will lead me astray, neither to Heaven, not to Hell, but into a Purgatory where only evil and twisted light shines through. When the eyes of the Wind Fish are open, then it will all be over. The dream that prolongs my existence will end, and the Islands of the Wind Fish will be swept away. And the Purgatory in which I existed, though dark and evil it might be, still a coveted existance, will meet a tremendous end. The Moon above you will fall into the Twilight, when the eyes of the Wind Fish are open. Unless you can gather the grains of the Hourglass again, unless you can bring the Book of Fate, and the Hourglass of Time to the Clocktower on the stroke of midnight 3 days from now, then will the Moon fall into the Twilight of the Festival of Falling Stars, and I will forever cease to be, I, and all those souls who are in the balance of the Purgatory, whosoever Fate Farore has woven within that twisted light, and sickly wind. "

"Impossible..,"Ryoga groaned in despair.

Zelda hit her knees.

Child-Link looked at her ,worriedly.

"Not so fast! My mother was wise to send you here. There are many spirits who do not obey the laws of Farore, and find her to be an unworthy queen. Of all of these most honorable, are the Samurai-Foxes, formally known by their family name the Keatons. They have sworn themselves to defending all those who dwell in the confines of Time from Farore's evil will. And so, they cieled their souls into a book called the Scroll of the Fox's Vows,"

Link pulled it from out of his tunic, and placed it in Ranma's hand.

"The Scroll of the Fox's Vows, binds the Keatons, body and soul, to your service, Master. They can take you into Eternity and back into Time at will, and so it will extend your 3 day term. They can sense the presence of the Time-Sand. It will be a great help to you..."

No sooner did Child Link speak, than did the Wind Fish lower long golden chains attached to colorfully bird-like swooping kites.

"Beware, Master! The Lady is turning to the Stone of Agony,and the path of the righteous is sown with thorns...You must believe...for the sake of sweet redemption!"

By the wind, by the tides, by the storm,by the skies, and to the shadows, Link was gone...


End file.
